Differences between musicians and nonmusicians in the influence of harmonic closure on language comprehension

Relation between harmonic closure or suspension and declarative or interrogative sense of a sentence

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24215/18530494e050

Keywords:

language, syntax, harmony, chords, tonal

Abstract

This study investigates whether music exerts priming effects on the meaning of linguistic utterances, establishing relationships between the notion of closure or harmonic suspension of musical fragments and the declarative or interrogative meaning of sentences. The participants in the experiment listened to sentences pronounced declaratively and interrogatively simultaneously, in two voices. Each sentence was paired with a chord progression. The participants, who had to decide which type of sentence they heard more clearly, mostly opted for the declarative form when the sentences were paired with progressions whose harmonic ending was more stable and whose chords progressed in a downward direction, and for the interrogative form when the final harmonic was more unstable and the chords advanced in an upward direction. In order to provide evidence in favor of the Shared Syntactic Integration Resources Hypothesis (SSIRH), the article offers solid arguments to vindicate the existing links between music and language.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Author Biography

Aleix Herreras Carrera, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, España

Aleix Herreras Carrera is a musicologist. He studied the Master's Degree in Specialized Communication at the Universitat de Barcelona and now is a Phd student at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya. Together with the linguist Joseph Hilferty, he has investigated the priming effect of musical changes on linguistic comprehension. Now he studies the music of presidential campaign ads with Dr. Isabel Villanueva Benito.

 

References

Andrés, R. (2008). El mundo en el oído: el nacimiento de la música en la cultura. El Acantilado.

Bigand, E., Parncutt, R. y Lerdahl, F. (1996). Perception of musical tension in short chord sequences: the influence of harmonic function, sensory dissonance, horizontal motion, and music training. Perception and Psychophysics, 58, 125-141. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03205482

Boquete Martín, G. (2009). Fonética y prosodia en español: la entonación y su enseñanza en el aula de lenguas [fragmento de tesis doctoral, Universidad de Alcalá]. https://es.slideshare.net/Gabinoboquete/fonetica

Bueno, G. (1978). En torno al concepto de “ciencias humanas”. La distinción entre metodologías Alfa-operatorias y Beta-operatorias. El Basilisco, 2, 12-46.

Farbood, M. M. (2016). Memory of a tonal center after modulation. Music Perception, 34(1), 71–93. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2016.34.1.71

Fernández Planas, A. M., Martínez Celdrán, E., Carrera Sabaté, J., Van Oosterzee, C., Salcioli Guidi, V., Castellví Vives, J. y Szmidt

Sierykow, D. (2004). Interrogatives absolutes al barceloní i al tarragoní (estudi contrastiu). Estudios de Fonética Experimental, 13, 129-155.

Fiveash, A., McArthur, G. y Thompson, W. F. (2018). Syntactic and non-syntactic sources of interference by music on language processing. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-36076-x

Grewe, O., Nagel, F., Kopiez, R. y Altenmüller, E. (2007). Listening to music as a recreative process: physiological, psychological, and psychoacoustical correlates of chills and strong emotions. Music Perception, 24(3), 297-314. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2007.24.3.297

Huron, D. (2006). Sweet anticipation: Music and the psychology of expectation. The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/6575.001.0001

Jaimovich, J., Coghlan, N. y Knapp, R. B. (2013). Emotion in motion: A study of music and affective response. En M. Aramaki, M. Barthet, R. Kronland-Martinet y S. Ystad (eds.), From sounds to music and emotions (pp. 19-43). Springer.

Koelsch, S., Gunter, T. C., Cramon, Y. V., Zysset, S., Lohmann, G. y Friederici, A. D. (2002). Bach speaks: A cortical “Language-Network” serves the processing of music. NeuroImage, 17(2), 956–966. https://doi.org/10.1006/nimg.2002.1154

Koelsch, S., Kasper, E. y Sammler, D. (2004). Music, language and meaning: Brain signatures of semantic processing. Nature Neuroscience, 7, 302–307. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1197

Lerdahl, F. (2001). Tonal Pitch Space. Oxford University Press.

Patel, A. D. (2008). Music, language and the brain. Oxford University Press.

Poulin-Charronnat, B., Bigand, E., Madurell, F. y Peereman, R. (2005). Musical structure modulates semantic priming in vocal music. Cognition, 94(3), B67-B78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2004.05.003

Roncaglia Denissen, M. P., Bower, F. L. y Honing, H. (2018). Decision making strategy and the simultaneous processing of syntactic dependencies in language and music. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00038

Sears, D. R. W. (2015). The perception of cadential closure. En M. Neuwirth y P. Bergé (eds.), What is a cadence?: Theoretical and analytical perspectives on cadences in the classical repertoire (pp. 253-285). Leuven University Press.

Slevc, L., Reitman, J. y Okada, B. (2013). Syntax in music and language: The role of cognitive control. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 35. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2zt516z1

Storr, A. (2002). La música y la mente (H. Collins, trad.). Paidós.

Tillmann, B. y Bigand, E. (2004). The relative importance of local and global structures in music perception. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 62(2), 211-222. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-594X.2004.00153.x

Valenzuela, J. y Hilferty, J. (2002). Music, modularity and syntax. International Journal of English Studies, 7(1), 101-115. https://revistas.um.es/ijes/article/view/48911

Published

2023-08-07 — Updated on 2023-08-09

How to Cite

Herreras Carrera, A., & Hilferty, J. (2023). Differences between musicians and nonmusicians in the influence of harmonic closure on language comprehension: Relation between harmonic closure or suspension and declarative or interrogative sense of a sentence. Epistemus. Journal of Studies in Music, Cognition & Culture, 11(1), 050. https://doi.org/10.24215/18530494e050

Issue

Section

Artículos originales de investigación